


Put a Bow on That

by Anonymous



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post-Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 00:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12222480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Talking his way out of a potential mutiny, averting a hunt on Peter, enjoying riches, being luckier than he has any right to be ... that's just how life goes for Yondu Udonta, sometimes, and he's not going to complain.Especially not if Nova Prime, of all people, want to help out with some of those things.





	Put a Bow on That

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Yondu Week, Day Five: Presents.

* * *

  
Payment came through a short while after Yondu had opened the Orb, registering as an asset update on arguably his most legal bank account. Funny enough (a lot of things were funny right now, what the way he couldn't stop smiling about that lug with the light fingers, Peter Quill), his account registered it as coming at no value. It was a big damn hunk of a planet - of course it had worth! Looked real pretty on the attached image, too.

He pulled up more information with a search; the most relevant pages were all sourced from the Xandarian Empire, but were different enough to provide various points of view. Government gazette announcements, environmental rights groups protesting and urging the government to act within the auspices of the inter-galactic life laws as well as Xandarian law, historians and political commentators comparing the discovery to past ones, explorers and geologists drumming up interest for expeditions... So that's what it came down to: they hadn't done mining assessments yet - had swallowed the habitable planet within its borders, knew it was empty of sapient species, but still needed to confirm what it could provide the Empire.

Giving up all the evident value and tantalising possibilities was, apparently, equivalent to a thank you note. Signed off by Nova Prime and all - a scan of her signature glowed his favourite shade of red, indicating the bank had okayed it as authentic. What a bird-scratch! That was handwriting as bad as a number of his boys', and he had to work at wiping off another silly grin.

"Boys!" he thundered into the atmosphere, tipping back in the chair to give his voice room, "we got us a beach!"

He thought it might be a gift, but for his crew, he spun it as "payment", for all it was a sharp turn away from what had been agreed on. There might be buried treasure yet, he thought, fighting a smirk. Chances were Peter had gone on his old "scurvy sea-dogs" kick for a minute, and it was lucky they hadn't been awarded a bitty island instead, from what he remembered of the kid's babbling. Not much else was likely to convince the government of Xandar to hand this payload over to a squad of grubby mercenaries.

Drunk and high and, possibly, simply a bit sleepy after all the excitement, the crew flopped over, spun their chairs around, and staggered back into the room, their listening attitudes at ready. The fact that the Captain had news of interest spread around fast, and he liked that. Better keep it. He shoved up out of his chair, propped one foot on the seat, presented the empty Orb for viewing, and gave them fire.

Peter would have had to bust out some really convincing tears to match Yondu's threats, if he were around. A bounty was the least of it, there were bones cracking and ligaments slit and individual nerve ends drizzled with teensy drops of acid - _all right, all right, Udonta, don't give them ideas and don't give nobody time to roll eyes, they're all intoxicated enough for it to be of good use._ All of that action was enough to stop them lingering on the realisation that Yondu had been suckered into a trap. Now to get them trotting promptly off of Peter's back.

He whacked his console to make the image of their new land jump up nice and big, 4D-holo where you could even watch the computer's approximation of time passing. Grudging, greedy, he spoke with hoarse eagerness about having ownership of a prime, pristine, extensive stretch of land at the edge of Xandar Empire space, well away from a good chunk of entities who might have it in for them. Even the ones inclined to yell about Quill's betrayal - not many of the crewmembers shared his and the boy's sense of humour, it was true - quietened in assessment at the image of the winding ribbon of water, sand, cliffs, and forest that went on so long it curved along the planet's surface.

It was the kind of non-standard payment to put to a vote. Three groups emerged: sell off the dirt and salt water they hadn't asked for and the Nova jackasses didn't even have use for, versus keep the place as their refuge and retreat away from the so-called control of other Ravagers, versus enjoy the beach a while, scour it to see what was there, and then sell it off. Two-thirds voting at least in part for "keep it" meant that they would for now. The rest of the particulars was something the crew would have to convince each other about, as long as no weapons got involved, and would then be put back to the Captain for another general vote.

There was also enough agreement that they'd check the place out immediately - just barely. Plenty wanted to swing back Xandar's way to try and get at Peter while the planet's defences were down. Yondu argued for investigating their brand new property as soon as possible, before any other power in the galaxy took their time to sneak across a border and try to establish an outpost. If they could stake their claim, register it, get to taking a look-see round at what might be lying in wait...

He managed to refrain from mentioning buried treasure. Other people might remember Peter going on about that, and then it would sound too much like a joke. The crew had imagination enough when it came to suggestive statements about valuables, anyway, and this was the kind of value plenty of them had dreamed of.

Plans started floating around. Jostling, sloppy fights broke out among those with a sense for numbers, to establish who all would check the Captain's figures once the value of the land was split between everybody. " _Ours_! All of that's yours, and mine, and ours!" And the crew jumped again into celebration.

Yondu sat back down in his chair to take care of what he could of the navigation, most everybody else being a sight too hammered to manage, and he thought of Peter. Betraying him and his crew and the Code, saving a planet, being a silly bouncy dancing idiot _for the love of god what the fuck why all the time, boy, why like that_ , vaporising that prime jackass Ronan the Accuser, and damn near setting Yondu up for execution until he had likely talked fast, as quick as he could, until he got the proverbial gun nozzle to point somewhere else rather than digging warmly into Yondu's ear.

That big fucking dimbulb. With his being brave and his running round with pretty girlies every spare minute and never giving up on landing his ass in as much trouble as a brace of other beings tied together might experience in a decade, if they really tried. _And_ his excellent taste in doll things. Yondu was going to unpocket that piece of classic Terran squishface art as soon as possible and wedge it in among the rest of the adorable junk on his dash. Only took twenty-six years and diving into a whole new way of life for Peter to pry his nutty little head off of the idea that he had to cling to every totem of Terra he'd carried with him on that kicking-and-screaming, crying-and-wailing night...

Yondu's grin was angling into something way too sharp when he got a call.

A call from - according to the caller ID, the caller image, and the quickest verification programme he could find on the computer - Nova Prime.

And the first thing she said was, "Ambassador Udonta."

He caught the rest, but only by dint of long practice at keeping sensible under pressure, because most of his energy was going into keeping his brow from travelling up halfway across his scalp. She said: "The people of Xandar, of the Xandarian Empire, and I, personally, as Irani Rael - thank you and your crew."

Okay, actually, that made some sense. Then he looked around at said crew. All of them seemed down for the count, but he slipped off to the private call room just off the bridge. This talk would surely have the kind of information he preferred to parcel out according to his own judgement, not because some of his own pet a-holes overheard.

"Okay, okay, but let me just say: you shouldn't ought to smoke the good stuff while you're in the office," he advised as he walked around an obstacle course of sprawled bodies. "See me and my boys? Lemme angle the camera, there they are, all snoring-- They are up to the neck on all kinds of things. But I decided to keep my head clear, and I don't end up saying funny stuff that makes no sense. That's the way to run a ship." He closed the door behind him - there, soundproofed - and got settled on a chair.

"I have smoked nothing, nor drunk any intoxicants, nor even taken more of Peter Quill's advice--"

Yondu couldn't help it, he laughed. "Thought it was him, landing us a beach!"

"It was. I wished to know how I could repay my home planet's debt for your part in helping to save us all. How we could thank you. Peter gave entirely too many ideas for various ridiculous reasons, but this one seemed fitting."

They looked at each other, and even with the flicker of the vidcall images, could see enough that they knew each other to be savvy, and also knew that things were easier than they should be. Nova Prime was sincere about her thanks to a ruthless Ravager, and Captain Yondu Udonta was sincere about how he'd laughed loud and proud in front of a political make-and-breaker he ought to be sussing out for blackmail or kidnapping.

"You lost men, as we did," she said, barely any sympathy to the acknowledgement. Well damn, she did have a good measure of him, or at least of Ravagers.

"That was a good fight for the boys to be lost to, up against the fucking Kree and their cronies - _you_ know," he said, and had a chortle at how she groped for a bottle of water (or perhaps, disguised intoxicants after all) that stood at the corner of her desk.

"No comment."

"Suuure. But anyhow. Those boys went out by their orders and their own choice, and in full fire. It's got to be good enough, huh?"

He allowed time for both of them to think on the missing faces under their command, then said, "Now, about that 'Ambassador' bit you mentioned?"

"You are a Ravager crew. It's well known that the different clans never act entirely alone."

 _Well, got news for you there, ma'am._ He let her carry on.

"As Ravagers, you've been the first of the clans to offer concrete assistance in a political attack ranged against Xandar, the planet and quite likely the entire Empire. And as Ravagers, you were among the first people to get word of the existence and value of an Infinity Stone. It's the sort of information that I would prize highly."

So, not just thankful, then; but even with this, Nova Prime showed a little too much. There was an edge to her that showed how seriously she took this. It wouldn't do any good to get her mad, but surely there was room to work in before that.

"Guess you're always looking for the next angle you can stick some kind of a wedge into. Don't I know about that," Yondu said. "Hey, am I going to go on payroll?"

"Am I going to get something out of it that would warrant payment?"

He folded his hands, making her image from the device on his wrist wobble, but it was that or rub them together in the course of making his plans. That might put her off.

"I'm sure we could come to some arrangement!"

They exchanged something like pleasantries after that, and ended the call. Once Yondu and his crew hit the beach the first time, he sent her a snapshot, and she responded with one of Xandar - from high up, maybe her office window; there were cranes and freighters with building materials all over the place.

Yondu looked at that for longer than he meant to, on and off through the day.

*

He found leads where he could, passed them on in-between studying that shot of Xandar, in-between asking Nova Prime for information on the Infinity Stone they already had. Gave advice on which go-betweens could set up connections with the deeper, scummier go-betweens that would be help in getting closer to the sources of the leads. Even ferreted out information on things like Kree extremist cells and their warship caches, and that was a pure bonus.

The Xandar pay helped well enough, though he had to filter it into keeping the ship's systems going, carefully, rather than pay it into his crew's accounts. Well, it still did them good, that was fair - and they could always decide to sell that land of theirs if push came to shiv. Everybody was still smarting from the loss of those billions of units, and well he could understand ... but any ructions were still far enough under the surface that he could work it.

The system worked out all right, up until it turned out Yondu was the kind of dumbass he accused his boy of being - and wasn't it a horrifying thought that Peter might have got it from somewhere.

*

Never underestimate a politician just because it looks like she's a pretty boring type who never leaves her office day or night.

Maybe, just maybe, take into consideration that she's the type of politician to go and jump on opportunities to make deals with mercenaries if they show the slightest, generously interpreted hint of a thing like decency.

A hard-working, opportunity-seeking politician would likely be the kind of lady with an ability to make contacts, Yondu realised in retrospect. Contacts like, for example, Captain Aleta Ogord of the Ravagers.

Aleta's image stared at Yondu out of her position as second party on the call, while he was the third. She was ready, had the slight disbelief and the little sneer down to nearly invisible, enough left to be insulting, shaming. Nova Prime was doing fine, her personal assistant standing ready at her back like she so often was during business hours. Yondu gawped, his internal organs taking a quick spin on their axes at the sight of that long-familiar face grown older, and come so close to him once again.

"I will say it again: I warn you against working with him," said Aleta. Look at her, that set of her head and shoulders, she was on the verge of cutting and running. But something kept her there on the call.

"Then you two have already been talking about me?" Yondu said, his fight coming back, winding his jaw and his fists up tight. He hid his hands below the table he sat at. "I can give you the skinny on my fellow captain, too, if you want. Not exactly the easiest person to trust you've got on the line here, Nova Prime. Probably the least predictable captain the Ravagers got, aside from one other contender." He didn't say Krugarr's name yet, in case that was taken as some kind of betrayal of confidence.

"Valuable information from all sides is what I'd hoped for from this meeting," Nova Prime said archly. "Thank you both for your contributions."

"Might do better if I get told who else is on call," Yondu mentioned. Maybe if the notice was a month or ten in advance, at that.

"It was requested that the information be kept extra-quiet," Nova Prime said, indicating Aleta.

Who looked intrigued, against her inclination. "You do have an alliance. I can't truly be that unpredictable, with the competition so stiff."

"Captain Udonta and his crew are among our heroes of Xandar."

Aleta's voice was all sigh. "He is faithless, and deceptive. And he wouldn't have stirred to help you, if not for profit."

"Bite me," said Nova Prime.

It put the conversation on a bit of a pause.

The only sound was the gentle scratch of the assistant writing on her ever-present clipboard, a little beep as she tapped the pen to make a dot, and then she was still and looking attentively between the three of them. There was not one stray pull in her expression, nor her boss's. Next thing you knew these two uptight suits were going to do Peter's "Ooh Child" dance, it was probably going to become a historical Xandarian tradition and all.

Sometimes, in the most difficult of moments, Yondu remembered how much of life and this fucking weird galaxy he still loved.

"Captain Aleta," said Yondu, jerking her attention back, and she looked like she was being asked to take in a lot. That form of address had been a playfight between them, whether he was being disrespectful or sweet when he called her that and her husband "Captain Stakar", even on the big, formal Table occasions, never bothering with the confusion of calling them both Ogord. With all that history lurking in him, he should be furious, he should feel hurt, and he was going to hold on hard to the fact that he wanted to have a laugh instead.

"There's profit to be had," he said, "clean and simple, a really tidy sum, and for the better class of reasons, as I know your standards go. Think about it. Talk about it. Cut me out of it, or get me talking to another Ravager, one with no personal objections. But it's worth thinking on, and Nova Prime's a solid person to do the thinking with.

"Yondu Udonta out."

Before he cut the call, he gave Nova Prime a nod of acknowledgement - but it didn't seem like enough. She'd _defended_ him, despite her having good sense and all. Had to add something, couldn't sit here with just a significant stare, at least a little wave.

She tipped the same little wave back at him.

*

The next time he and Nova Prime talked, they exchanged shrugs of, _well, the ambassador thing was obviously a really long shot_ , and moved on.

Yondu said, "Captain Aleta had a point, you know."

Not a hair out of place, but Nova Prime still managed to look flustered. "I suppose," she said with the kind of exacting deliberation that could surely convince hairs back in place, should they dare stray, "that all of this is not the most rational subject for me. I'll be thankful to you and yours until you give me very good reason not to be."

"And me being involved only for the money, and all?"

"You have been paid. I was made to understand that you'd be furious, and barely soothed by the prospect of wealth dangled in front of you, out for the blood of one of the saviours of my home. You've asked me at least five times how Peter's doing."

He gave her a good shot of fuck-off look - surely he kept it together enough to say "Quill"! - but damn it, he couldn't hold the attitude. He dragged a hand down his face. "Yeah all right, no rubbing it in, now. It's just, you know. Can't _believe_ that boy saved a planet, no hesitation to how he did it." Yeah, there it was again - the smile came back.

She smiled too, reaching for some paperwork. Always with the multi-tasking - maybe he ought to pull up some spreadsheets on the computer and work too.

"And, don't forget in your pride, so did Gamora, daughter of Thanos," said Nova Prime, as she made notes. "...Drax the Destroyer ... And two beings that seem as if they shouldn't exist ... and by all accounts, made any other being who thought that way regret it."

"They all seemed pretty fun, are they fun?" Peter had always felt hard-up for pals that wouldn't shove him off a high walkway for laughs, even though they'd only started with that after he got the rocket boots.

"Oh, aren't they just."

"I didn't see the big guy, though, there at the end."

"Groot - the Flora colossus? He is, sadly, more of a twig at the moment. A casualty in the battle, of sorts ... it seems that he might recover, in some form. A very strange being."

"Fits right in with the rest of 'em, from the look of it. So, how's the repair on that ship of Quill's doing?"

"They'll be flying off sooner rather than later."

"All of them together? Good, good." Yondu opened up a few more tabs on his screen and then quit stalling. "Your engineering staff and whatnot might find themselves a little thing on that _Milano_. A tracker. I'm thinking it's the class of thing that gets reported to you, if someone spots it. Keep it there, would you? Quill gets himself in trouble."

There was a weighing and a balancing going on. Looking at her, he could tell Nova Prime was ignoring what she knew she liked of him, taking him in anew, judging soundly.

She nodded.

It would be too much to tell her thanks for her judgement. And yet he opened his mouth twice to say so. Finally he managed to stick to, "A _lot_ of trouble, you got no idea."

"I might have some. He has been living here for nearly a month, and we had to take him on press tours."

Finally, someone else was suffering the Peter Quill wrangling experience! But that, of course, led to another point he needed to raise. "The other thing I wanna ask is, those times when you make a big deal out of this 'Guardians of the Galaxy' biz, from now on - speechifying at celebrations and opening ceremonies at rebuilt areas and whatnot - lean in on the angle of how hard you'd come down on anybody that tries to wreck 'em. Tangling with Peter and crew, that means tangling with the whole X Empire, Nova Force and the Corps and all."

He wasn't negotiating the way he ought to. It was a bunch of requests, no strong position to bargain from ... it was going to work anyway. Nova Prime was nodding already: it was that simple. Though what she said was, "Don't call us that."

"X Empire? That's good press. Badass."

"It's more suited to a melodrama, is what it is. And I'll see about that spin, but it shouldn't be difficult to manage. It would be the truth."

"Gives me something to tell my boys here, you know? They had a promise of a couple hundred thousand units each to pocket. Nothing about being planet-saving heroes and all that, when we made the deal. They ain't the happiest at the moment."

"I will help you, and I will help Peter Quill, as much as I'm able."

"That's it," he admitted. She could have the information she wanted - that was all she needed to do. "Put a bow on that."

"My silence regarding these requests, should anyone ask," she said, bent over her work. "That's the bow."

"You could be a captain, y'know. And I could go into politics. We'd shock the hell out of any comers, but we'd play the fields with the same skills, from what I see."

"I am not taking that as a compliment." All crisp, uptight.

There he had it, the flash of inspiration - if he ever got the excuse to send her a gift, maybe nudged that assistant for birthday information or something, he knew exactly what he was getting Nova Prime. Something real nice to smoke and unwind with, like he'd accused her of back when they'd started talking. Even delivered to her house rather than her office, to avoid the scandal.

And then Yondu had to wipe the planning look off his face when Nova Prime glanced up. She'd know as soon as she caught sight of him that trouble was brewing.

For now it was good enough to have the quiet of working together, the occasional word exchanged on this and that. He'd save pissing her off for later, when it got to be too fun to resist. But, for now ... it was odd, it was distant, but it was companionable. He had better appreciate it while it lasted.


End file.
